UN official calls for Lebanon’s president to avoid arming of Hezbollah

Lebanon’s president had called for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah to play a “complementary role” with the Lebanese army.

The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Sigird Kaag, implicitly called upon Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun, to not allow for the arming of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

“UN resolution 1701 is vital for Lebanon’s stability and security,” she wrote on Twitter. “The resolution calls for disarmament of all armed groups. No arms outside control of state.”

The United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1701 in August of 2006, to mandate an end to the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution calls for “the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that…there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State.”

Contrary to the spirit of Resolution 1701, the Lebanese President Michel Aoun expressed support for the idea of Hezbollah having a complementary military role alongside Lebanon’s army.

“(Hezbollah) has a complementary role to the Lebanese army,” he said to the Egyptian TV network CBC on Sunday night. “As long as the Lebanese army is not strong enough to fight Israel, we believe in the need for it to exist.”

Israel and Lebanon are still officially enemy states. Lebanon participated with at least four other Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq) in the invasion of the fledgling Jewish state during the War of Independence in 1948.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

HezbollahLebanonMichel AounSecond Lebanon WarUnited NationsUnited Nations Security Council